Moments | reading in railway carriages

There’s something special about reading in a railway carriage. Perhaps it’s the rhythm of the ‘faster than fairies, faster than witches’ carriages rattling along as you read, or maybe it’s the way the countryside unrolls like a plot as you go. We have a particular penchant for reading a railway-based book on a train journey. So we’ve matched a few books with a few train journeys to inspire you. Think of it like a cheese and wine pairing, but with choo-choos and words. 

Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone

Read it:  on any train from platform nine or ten at King’s Cross, London.

Bring with you: Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.

If you can’t locate Platform nine-and-three-quarters simply enjoy chugging out of this magnificent station, pretending you’re on your way to Hogwarts for the first time. 

Murder on the Orient Express

Read it: on the Istanbul to Paris line via Belgrade.

Bring with you: a pipe and a handkerchief embroidered with the letter H.

Get your little grey cells to work as you relive the great age of steam through Agatha Christie’s 1934 crime novel.

The Railway Children

Read it: On the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway at Oakworth Railway Station.

Bring with you: Apple Pie (for breakfast). How perfectly ripping.

Feel your heart swell with a love of steam as you read the immortal opening line: ‘They were not Railway Children to begin with.’

Strangers on a Train

Read it: On a train from New York to Texas

Bring with you: a good alibi.

Eye up your fellow passengers and mull over which might be best at committing the perfect murder while you settle into Patricia Highsmith’s fabulous 1950 thriller.

The Girl on the Train

Read it: on a commuter train from Buckinghamshire to Euston. 

Bring with you: gin in a tin for the journey home.

Nose in a few kitchens and back gardens as you pass through suburbia and enjoy making up backgrounds for the lives of the people whose houses you pass. There’s nothing like a train for people-watching. 

The picture above by Andreas Von Einsiedel is from our Home Tour feature in our June issue - a house built around a railway carriage! If you like the idea of escaping to a railway carriage for a weekend, you might like to know you can stay in the house itself, The Bolthole, in Pagham, West Sussex.

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Recipe | Bakewell slice

Fragrant frangipane, crunchy almonds and no sickly sweet fondant in sight makes a lovely tea-time treat

Makes 12

For the sweet pastry base:
200g plain flour
50g ground almonds
75g caster sugar
160g salted butter (at room temperature), cubed
1 egg yolk

For the Filling:
150g raspberry jam
130g salted butter, softened
160g caster sugar
4 eggs
260g ground almonds
40g flaked almonds, to decorate

1. To make the base, put the flour, ground almonds and caster sugar in a bowl and combine. Add the butter and use your fingertips to rub it into the mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk, then mix and knead the dough to create a tight, smooth ball. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 mins. Before use, allow to stand at room temperature for 10-15 mins.
2. Preheat the oven to 170C/Fan 150C/ Gas 3. Roll out the sweet pastry base until it's 5mm thick and use it to line a 34x20cm baking tray, gently pushing it into the edges. Trim off any excess.
3. Prick the base a few times with a fork, then line with baking parchment and fill with baking beans before blind baking for 15-20mins. Leave to cool, but leave the oven on. Once cooled, spread the raspberry jam over the base.
4. To make the filling, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the ground almonds and whisk thoroughly.
5. Spoon the filling over the jam base right up to the edges. Sprinkle over the flaked almonds, then bake for 30-35 mins until golden on top and firm in the middle. Cool before cutting into 12 slices.

This recipe is from the June issue of The Simple Things. If you fancy a little something sweet the issue also has recipes for a yarrow cake, crab apple tarte tatin, meringue kisses and more.

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Taken from Artisan Home Baking: Wholesome and Delicious Recipes for Cakes and Other Bakes – Recipes from Meg Rivers, Bakers of Happiness (Ryland Peters & Small) Photography: Steve Painter

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Nature | Peripatetic Peregrines

How some country-dwelling birds moved to the big smoke

We live in strange times and the beasts among us that are adaptable are those that will likely emerge the strongest.

Take the peregrine, for example; just a few decades ago, this magnificent cliff-dweller was dwindling in number in the UK, due to the (now banned) pesticide DDT. But now they’re back, and they’ve moved upmarket, taking up residence in some of the most sought-after buildings in our cities.

When Battersea Power Station was renovated and became luxury flats the first family through the door was a pair of peregrines. Unfortunately, they chose to nest in one of the chimneys that was about to be taken down and rebuilt. Peregrines are no respecters of a rising housing market. The development company had to - at a cost of £100,000 - build a mast next to the chimney with a nesting box and pray that the birds would relocate there for their next nesting season. Fortunately the peregrines acquiesced - perhaps Sarah Beeney had a word - and they’ve remained there since. 

City slicker peregrines have been spotted circling St Paul’s, diving for prey from cranes and generally cavorting all over the city. The cathedrals, cranes and chimneys from which they nest and hunt are their new cliff faces. And they’re enjoying city life very nicely, thank you. It’s thought the rise in numbers is accounted for by the large numbers of feral pigeons available for them to eat. 

But it’s not just in London that peregrines are settling down to city life. They’ve also nested successfully for many years in Norwich Cathedral spire, at St John’s in Bath, in Manchester skyscrapers, on Nottingham Trent University and even on a phone mast in Southampton. 

If you live in a city and are a lover of large birds, just look up, up, up. You might just find a peregrine looking back at you, beady of eye.

If you like the feathered chap above, you might be interested to know he was made entirely of paper and is the work of Zack McLaughlin os paperandwood.co.uk. You can see more paper birds from page 20 of our June issue.

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Interesting things | secret signs on houses

Rainbows are gracing many of our windows right now as a symbol of hope but they weren’t the first symbol to have been displayed on our windows and doors as a sign of solidarity, welcome or more 

From the Icthus ‘fish’ symbol to let passers-by know you were a Christian, to a European flag to let them know you voted Remain, we’re all quite keen on displaying signs on the outside of our homes as messages to others. At Halloween, a pumpkin in the window is a sign trick-or-treaters are welcome, at Christmas a wreath goes out to welcome in both neighbours and the season. 

Here are a few more secret signs that people have displayed to send a clandestine (or not so clandestine) message to others over the years, that you might not know about. 

Candles

When practising the Catholic faith was outlawed under British repression in Ireland, priests went underground, conducting masses in secret. Catholics would leave a candle burning in their window and the door unlocked to let priests know they could sneak in for a quick bit of clandestine Catholicism. When the British queried the practice they were told it was to represent the pure and open of heart welcoming Our Lady and the Christ child into their homes. Sneaky!

Secret paintings

In 18th Century South Africa, the Ndebele people were at war with the neighbouring Boers. They suffered great losses and terrible treatment at the hands of the Boers and began to express their grief and anger with symbols painted on their houses to communicate with other Ndebele groups. The Boer farmers thought it was simply cultural art so allowed it to continue. 

Blood on the doorposts (or something slightly less frightening if you prefer)

In the story of the Passover, Moses tells the enslaved Israelites to paint their doorposts with the blood of a lamb they have sacrificed. When the angel of death passes over their houses, those with blood were ‘passed over’ and the Israelites remain safe, while the firstborn son of every Egyptian home died. Some Jews still mark this, the beginning of their safe passage out of Egypt, with a decorative piece of red cloth over the door as they celebrate Passover each year., cloth being a little less of a terror to get off paintwork than lamb’s blood.

Horseshoes

A message to Old Nick himself to warn him off. The story goes that St Dunstan (patron saint of blacksmiths) was visited by the devil who demanded a horseshoe for one of his cloven hooves. St Dunstan nailed a red hot horseshoe to his hoof and said he would only remove it if the devil promised to respect the horseshoe and never again visit any home with one displayed. (Sadly, this doesn’t work for political canvassers, junk mail and the like.)

Pampas grass in the front garden

Said to be a sign that the occupants are, ahem, ‘swingers’ looking for willing participants, sales of the sharp-leafed plant have apparently plummeted in recent years as home-owners have cottoned on that they may be attracting unwanted attention.

Rude graffiti

In ancient Rome, phalluses were carved everywhere but were often seen on doors and around windows as a symbol of protection or good fortune (and you thought horse shoes were weird). Rather charmingly, tiny phalluses were also used like arrows, pointing men in the direction of the nearest brothel. We’d say ‘when in Rome’ but perhaps best NOT to go carving any willies on windows if you’re visiting.

Hobo emojis

Around the turn of the 20th century in America, hobos (men travelling from place to place looking for work and hitching illegal rides on freight trains) would leave little hieroglyph style pictures all over the place, but often on doors, to give other hobos useful information such as where alcohol could be found, where good places were to get a train and where law-makers lived. A square and a circle each with a dot in meant ‘an ill-tempered man lives here’, a simple cat denoted ‘a kind lady lives here’. How reliable this all is, is uncertain - the tales of the hobo symbols were passed down by hobos themselves, who were known for enjoying a tall tale. 

Quilts

Legend has it that on the Underground Railroad in the States (a network of people offering safe houses and passage to slaves escaping from the south) quilts were stitched with secret messages to aid escape and then hung from windows and clothes lines. Escaping slaves would know the house’s owners might help them and the quilts would give them information about where to go next and how to stay safe.

You can read more about rainbows and their history in our June issue, which is on sale now.

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Recipe | Meringue kisses

These melt-in the mouth meringue kisses are great with berries… who needs Wimbledon to enjoy them?

Makes 20 kisses

2 egg whites
125g white caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract (1 tsp sifted cocoa powder, if making chocolate ones)

FOR THE KISS MIXTURE
100ml double cream
3 tbsp lemon curd
2 tbsp blackcurrant jam (Or 100ml double cream and a handful of strawberries, hulled and finely chopped)

1 Put the egg whites in a large, clean bowl and whisk until they hold soft peaks.
2 Add the sugar, 1 tbsp at a time, whisking in each spoonful as you go. Once all the sugar is combined and the egg whites are glossy and stiff, add the vanilla extract. If making the chocolate variety, now is the time to fold in the cocoa powder, too.
3 Preheat the oven to 120C/Fan 100C/ Gas ½. Fill a piping bag with the mix and pipe 40 little peaks about 2cm apart on a lined baking sheet.
4 Bake for approximately 1 hr, until dry and crisp. Allow the meringues to cool fully before removing them carefully from the baking sheet.
5 In a bowl, whisk the cream and add your chosen fruity component.
6 To serve, take a meringue and sandwich it together with a second meringue using about 1 tsp of filling.

This recipe is part of our June ‘Gathering’ pages, which features some of our most magical summer recipes. You can find the rest of the recipes, including crab toasts and elderflower fizz from page 36.

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Playlist | Hop, skip and jump

Do the Moon Hop, Mix it with the Kangaroo, jump!

Listen to the playlist here.

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